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Thursday, 21 April 2011

A cheaper source of herbs?

What do you folks think about using the herb plants sold in supermarkets as "living ingredients" as a source of cheap(er) plants for the garden? In my local Garden Centre the individual herb plants - normally sold very immature, in 3" pots, are often priced at around £2.99. Even a smallish Rosemary plant, which takes longer for the producer to grow, would be probably £4.99. In the supermarkets you can get bigger plants for less money, for example we bought this pot of Rosemary for £1.49

This pot of Basil for 89p

And this pot of Thyme for a mere 50p (although to be fair, it was on Special Offer at half the usual price)

Actually, the Thyme plant is quite a bit bigger than when I bought it about a month ago, and I have had to put it in a bigger pot, but I think that just proves my point: the "ready-to-eat" plants from the supermarkets will normally be perfectly viable in the garden.

Of course, it has to be said that the cheapest way to get herb plants is to grow them yourself from seed - which is what I normally do - except in the case of Rosemary, which takes a long time to grow from seed! Or perhaps to take cuttings from plants you already have -- like these Sage cuttings I potted-up in the first week of February, which are showing signs of some new growth, so they must have rooted.

If I'm short of a particular herb I will always try and buy a supermarket plant, rather than a packet of leaves, and then take what I need and keep the plant going outside. Makes sense you then get more than one helping.

Your supermarket stocks a wider range of living herbs than any I've seen. Thyme, really? What I have read is that if you want to grow coriander foe LEAF then you should buy a supermarket pot of living herb and grow it on until it seeds. That way you get seed for leaf. Only problem is that they are such prima donnas that whenever I've tried to grow them on they've given up the ghost. I'm stocking up my herb bed at the moment. Everthing is from seed except Rosemary from cuttings (hopefully) and Buckler Sorrel from root. Basil stays indoors - this is Scotland!

We don't have living herbs in the produce section here but if it was cheaper, I don't see what the difference is. They are selling garlic bulbs for $1.50 in the plant section for 3 of them, I don't understand why anyone would buy the one bulb in the produce section for $ .89 when they could get 3 for $1.50.

I think propagating herbs bought from supermarket are much faster and cheaper than buying from nursery. It works really well too. We used to propagate lemon grass roots, vietnamese mint, rosemary and basil from the grocery.

Oh yes, I got my basil this way, but I don't think ours are quite as inexpensive as yours. I have very minimal success with herbs, and I am not sure what it is that I do wrong. Perhaps the climate is unsuitable for a lot of the more well known herbs. Don't know... do you do anything special to them? Yours always seem so healthy.

I have bought supermarket herbs in the past, but one does need to split, re-pot them. They are grown under intense conditions to ensure super fast growth. Therefore they outgrow their pots very quickly and the actual plants may not be of the best quality. We buy our herbs from Jekka and from our local national herb centre, both produce great plants. Admittedly, more expensive than that of the supermarket, but I would hazard a guess, stronger specimens. Though interestingly, I found that the best and cheapest chive seeds we purchased, came from B&Q!

Ali; I don't think I do anything special with my herbs. I probably lavish more TLC on them than most people do, but that really comes down to frequent watering, and the occasional bit of plant food. I would imagine that many of the sun-loving herbs would do well in Queensland: Rosemary, Oregano, Thyme, Lavender etc.

The supermarket herbs here are a lot more expensive then if you would buy them at a grower. They do not look nearly as nice as the ones you have available. We have a flea market nearby where I purchase an herb plant or two on occasion. They are really inexpensive there. The sage is really easy to root. I have a bush that is 10 years old and I am always taking a shoot and root it for others.

Monica; It depends how you define "the long haul"... I would consider both Basil and Coriander to be short-term annuals, so I wouldn't expect them to last very long. I always feed my herbs with general-purpose plant food, and it seems to pay off.

I use so many herbs I grab them from wherever I can, including the supermarkets. I have a great mint flourishing that cost me 90p. I also find that one of the large DIY stores - the one with the annoying Titchmarsh cutouts - often have really good deals on small pots of herbs at this time of year. I tend to use them to stock up on thyme and rosemary, which I use a lot. The coriander, on the other hand, isn't worth buying in a pot, it falls over as soon as it arrives home and never gets up again...